Shadows
by Shhasow
Summary: A short tale of sadness and old age, and the bitterness of holding on.  Keladry/Jonathan.  Written for Goldenlake's SMACKDOWN.


**A/N: **Not mine.

**Shadows**

When Kel had been younger, the large age gap between them had seemed like nothing.

Actually, it had been a substantial part of his allure as a man. That he was King meant little to Kel; his experience, maturity, wisdom, and sense of equality was what drew Kel to Jon. His extra years and long-held duties meant that he understood and appreciated her like no one her age.

With Thayet dead, Jon had seemed a tragic, suffering widower, bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders. It seemed that whenever she turned a corner, she found the king staring out a window with a lost expression, or rubbing the finger where his wedding ring used to sit. Kel felt compelled from compassion to break his melancholy, even for a few moments, so she struck up conversations, or invited him to read some new diplomatic treatise, or offered a friendly match on the practice courts. Quickly, more so than she would have ever imagined, they became friends.

Even though Jon was always busy with reports, meetings, and other daily minutia that arrived from running a country, he always made time for Kel, and he let her know of his feelings with small gestures and no uncertain words. Sometimes it was a gentle brush of his fingers along her back or shoulders, or a soft smile granted to her alone, or a note written in his hand that made her insides warm.

Before Kel realized it, she was being courted, and when she did, she reciprocated just as strongly, reveling in the sensation of wanting and being wanted. Later, she'd realize that his haste was because he felt he couldn't waste any more time, even though he confided to her that he expected to live many years longer due to his strong Gift.

Therefore, Kel decided quite firmly that his age hardly mattered. Fifty was nothing when eighty was easily expected.

Neal hadn't believed her at first when Kel told him that she was being courted by the king. He'd considered it a joke in spectacularly bad taste, and refused to believe her until he attended their actual wedding.

Her other friend, Kel had approached while he was in his office, and thankfully found him alone.

"Raoul," she said, her hands twisting nervously. "There's something you ought to know. Really, I need to tell you, but," she shrugged.

Raoul placed down the supply report in his hands and studied his friend with a worried frown. "Is everything alright, Kel?"

A smile bloomed on her face. "Yes," she breathed, "Very much so. Only, it's a bit surprising."

He leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms, and smirked. "Just tell me, Kel, who is he?"

She cringed slightly at her intuitive former knight-master, and after a few abortive attempts, she simply threw up her hands and announced, "I'm marrying Jon."

Raoul stared at her, his mouth frozen into a distorted facsimile of a smile, though it eventually faded away.

"Raoul?" Kel asked, uneasy.

He shook his head disbelievingly. "I don't pretend to understand," Raoul said slowly, " I can't tell you what to do, or what not to do. I am not your father." They both heard the silent words, that he was as close to a father as Piers of Mindelan ever had been. "Just, please, be certain. This is too great a decision to make lightly."

Kel listened to Raoul - when had she not? - but her heart remained firmly tied to her king, and for over a decade, everything was bliss. Not that she and Jon never disagreed, but they loved each other and worked out what differences they could, and let their love for the other smooth over what could not be changed.

But now looking back, Kel wondered as she fed her husband and absentmindedly wiped away the bits that fell away, if she had known what would happen in a twelve short years, would love have been enough?

* * *

><p>When Jon turned 65, he began to age. Physically, he'd been in decline for a few years, but it was then that he started to forget things. It was small things at first, like where he had set down a piece of paper or toed off his boots, but the day he called his youngest son by his oldest son's name, Kel knew something was terribly wrong.<p>

She remembered that day clearly:

Their only child, Piers, bounced around happily from room to room, thrilled that he had finally turned ten and would become a page. Even though he already lived in the palace, he was getting his own rooms in the page wing, and would be free from the over-protective eyes of his royal parents.

Piers checked his overflowing bags multiple times; he had insisted on moving only what he could tote in order to get the 'true experience' of a real page. Kel had grinned and shaken her head in amusement, and said nothing. Her little Piers had inherited his stubbornness from both parents, and there was little use to argue over something so small.

He was pawing through the leather bags one more time when Jon walked in, morning tea in hand. "You haven't forgotten anything, have you, Roald?"

Kel glanced in confusion at her husband; she knew Piers hadn't noticed, as he chirped a cheerful, "Nope!" and skipped from the room.

"You meant Piers."

"What?" Jon looked at her and away from the depths of his tea.

"You said Roald, Jon," Kel pressed.

He frowned, then shrugged. "I doubt that, Tha-Kel."

She froze in shock, certain that he had nearly called her by his dead wife's name, but Jon continued to sip placidly at his drink.

That was when Kel began to think, and not about pleasant things. This was not normal behavior, not when this instance was combined with a dozen other little moments of forgetfulness or odd indecisiveness. Just the other night, he'd become inordinately frustrated when he couldn't decide between two nearly-identical tunics.

Kel decided that she had to contact her old friend. Years ago, Neal had taken over for his father, and the healer would either calm her fears or would be able to fix whatever was drastically wrong.

* * *

><p>At first, no one could figure out why King Jonathan was having memory lapses. A man with his substantial, trained Gift should have been in the peak of mental health for two more decades. Healers from throughout the Eastern Lands examined Jon, ran tests on him, studied his family history, but there were no signs of madness.<p>

Eventually, the still-youthful Numair broke the news to the irritated king and his wife.

"No one's quite certain what's happening," the mage warned, but he was cut off before he could continue.

"Even after all these tests," grumbled Jon, "All these magical experiments, blood taken, all these and you still have no idea."

Kel laid a hand on his shoulder. "They're doing their best, Jon."

"And apparently their best isn't good enough." He shrugged off her hand and glared at Numair. "Fine. Give me your latest theory. I'm not mad, so what am I?"

Numair ran a long-fingered hand through his black hair, shot heavily with silver. "It's your mind, Jon," he sighed. "I think it was strained by unusual magics. The Dominion Jewel." He continued with more depth at Jon's skeptical look and Kel's horrified one. "I believe that the intense mental connection necessary to meld your mind with the Jewel and thus the very land of Tortall, stressed your mind, accelerated the aging process."

"Impossible," Jon said calmly with a slight eye-roll. "I don't believe you at all. And you, Kel," he turned to face his wife, "You need to stop. My mother is long dead and I don't want another. I am completely healthy in every way, as evidenced by the fact that Numair has to come up with some crackpot theory to explain my 'illness.'" Jon's voice grew louder. "I am _not_ mentally incompetent. I thoroughly _resent_ the implication, and there will be _no more_healers. Understand?"

Kel wore her Yamani mask, but it could not hide the paleness of her face. "Of course, Jon."

"Yes, sire." Numair bowed, glanced meaningfully at Kel, and swiftly left the room, his dignity limping behind.

After that disastrous meeting, Jon felt betrayed by his wife and his friends.

Kel, Neal, and the aging Raoul and Gary, barely convinced Jon to abdicate in favor of Roald. He stringently resisted, complained bitterly, and finally acquiesced only when they agreed that he was doing so only for the younger generation, not because of his failing mental capabilities.

The next few years were difficult, especially for Kel. The burden of caring for Jon had to go to someone, and even though he continuously groused and grumbled, she refused to let anyone else take over her duties. Even as Jon grew increasingly paranoid, secure in the knowledge that he was fine and it was everyone else who was allied against him, Kel said nothing to her friends.

They watched her worriedly, but respected her decision, though Neal once remarked that if they were waiting for Kel to admit that it was too much, they'd be waiting until Roger the Usurper himself came back from the dead a second time to confess his evil-ness.

Kel never would, of course. Jon was her husband, therefore it was on her honor as a wife and mother to care for him, no matter how ranted. Eventually, as he began to have trouble speaking - he'd forget simple words and names that he'd always known - Jon grew increasingly uncommunicative. Kel hated herself when she thought of such a progression as an improvement.

She didn't think Jon ever truly realized what was happening to him, and by the time it was obvious, he was too far gone to understand.

And now, Kel had no more tears left to shed. They were all gone, used up in the long years of thankless care.

* * *

><p>Lost in his memories of the past and the confusion of the present, the former king of Tortall suffered from an unusual mental decline. The putative cause was attributed to his extensive use of the Dominion Jewel, which had stressed and strained his mind and made it age at an extraordinary pace. With his prodigious Gift, Jon should have lived in relative health until over ninety, but at seventy-five, he'd spent five full years in altering states of delirium and irritable confusion.<p>

Kel had never thought of leaving Jon, not even when he was at his testiest and most self-delusional, not even when she listened patiently to his child-like ramblings or ushered him around on his carefully scheduled walks in the garden. Most of the time, he thought he was with his first wife, and it hurt Kel more than she would have imagined to hear herself called Thayet.

That simple name made her feel the interloper, as if she'd always been a simple replacement. As if she'd wasted her life.

Her tears were gone; she'd cried so much already that nothing else would come out. Kel hadn't cried in years and years and now she was an old woman who moved gingerly, her joints and bones and muscles endlessly aching and tight after decades of intense training and intensive healing.

"Kel?"

She'd been sitting in a chair next to Jon's bed, reading quietly to him, and at his voice she glanced up in surprise. It had been years since Jon had a lucid moment lasting longer than a few breaths. These moments of sanity were both a salve and a torment, to see her husband as he should have been made his mental confusion more painful, though Kel had grown more inured to it over the years.

Still, she placed down her book and slipped her gnarled hand into his. "Yes, Jon."

"Kel," he said again, stronger. His weak voice, usually distant and creaky, regained an edge reminiscent of his long-gone youth. Kel felt a shred of disbelief and doubt, and she could not respond. The words were caught in her throat, and she could only squeeze his old bones gently.

He smiled weakly, wrinkles becoming deeper at the edges of his eyes. "You look so old," he whispered, one hand reaching up to trace the curve of her cheek.

Kel realized that she was crying only when his thumb, trembling, swiped away the water.

"You're still here. I dreamed, I dreamed that you were gone."

"Did you think that I could go?" Kel choked out through the lump lodged in her throat. This was their first real conversation in five years, but it made her heart ache to look back on all the wasted years and think that he remembered nothing.

His clear blue eyes suddenly clouded, and he looked at her with sudden confusion. "Little Keladry of Mindelan? I'm sorry about the probation, but it was the only way to get you into knight training. You'll be fine, don't worry." His hand left her cheek to pat her hand, fatherly.

She blinked away tears. "Jon, don't you remember? You were just here, Jon." Kel whispered in a small voice, "Come back."

His leathery face pulled together in a deep frown. "Kel-Keladry?" Then, as if the moments had never existed, his eyes narrowed.

"You should have left," Jon said, suddenly harsh. "You should have left me after how I treated you. Dumped me with the palace healers."

"Would you have left me?"

Without a hint of hesitation, Jon shook his head.

"Then how could I be any different?" Kel's thumb stroked the back of his hand.

"Kel," he whispered again, almost desperately. "I feel something odd; I feel the shadows creeping in. I don't want you to leave. I don't want to leave you again."

Tears overflowed and fell from her red-rimmed eyes as she spoke fiercely, "I won't go."

"Please. I want the last thing I remember to be you." Kel bit back the words that wanted to escape - 'but you won't remember' - and simply slipped underneath the covers. His long arm draped around her shoulders and stroked her back, and hers was flung protectively across his chest."

Jon dropped a soft unsteady kiss to her forehead as they gazed searchingly into each other's eyes. "I love you, Kel," he said finally. "I always love you, even when I call you something different. I know you're there. I feel you, even if I can't say anything."

"I know." Kel couldn't prevent the sadness that crept into her voice, but Jon hardly noticed as his eyes began to unfocus.

When he looked back at her, it was with slight confusion. "Thayet. What are you doing? I thought we had a meeting with Harailt about the new university."

Kel hid her face in his soft cotton shirt so he wouldn't see her distress. "It was canceled, dear. Go back to sleep."

Her voice trembled, but he didn't notice, already lost in another memory of the past. As they drifted off to sleep, Kel could almost convince herself that they were still a normal loving couple. That she hadn't lived for another woman's husband for five years. That this was her Jon, and that he still knew it.

* * *

><p><strong>AN2: **I hope everyone is still here. This is my first fic of this type, truly tragic. It's dedicated to everyone who stays with their loved one, without thanks or praise, simply out of love and devotion.


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